Different lifestyles and a delicate balance

Bertie Ahern's relationship with Celia Larkin has come under the spotlight once again this week, in a way which was painful and embarrassing for all concerned, including, presumably, for his separated wife and family.

It is understandable why this very public relationship arouses such interest and passionate disagreement. Although our rate of marital breakdown is nowhere near the crisis proportions of the United States, where one in two new marriages is expected to break down, few extended families have been untouched by the sadness of failed marriages.

Few events, other than tragic and untimely death, surpass the chill which sweeps through a circle of friends when the seemingly most stable couple in the group announce they are to separate. None of us is immune.

Much of the support which was once automatically there for marriage has been eroded. Many people live far from families and other support networks. They work longer hours. They constantly feel guilty about short-changing their children. Under these changed circumstances, the wonder is that so many relationships remain sustaining and stable.

Aside from the fact that many people understand and empathise with those whose marriages have broken down, there is another issue. It is an important one. It concerns the divide between public and private. There is a distinction between Bertie and Celia and the Taoiseach and Ms Celia Larkin. When someone assumes public office, like it or not, they become public property and have a representative role. If anything, the standards expected of those in public life have risen enormously in the last decade.

Once, evidence of petty corruption would have raised little more than a shrug and a resigned "Sure, aren't they all at it?" Now, any evidence of financial impropriety brings down thunderous condemnation. It is true that there always was a different standard regarding sexual morality. In Britain, affairs were seized upon with great glee by the media, and many a politician found himself paying dearly for his indiscretions.

Here in Ireland, the policy was to look discreetly the other way. Was this hypocrisy? Or a recognition that human beings could be flawed in their personal relationships and still be effective leaders? Is it a change for the better when the salacious details of once-private relationships are sold to the highest bidder when the relationship sours? Or when public figures are stalked in order to find them in compromising situations, simply because they are public figures? I do not think so.

Yet neither do I believe that it is automatically hypocrisy to draw a distinction between the public and the private in a politician's life. Those who would defend the Taoiseach's right to place Ms Celia Larkin's name on State invitations would say that it would be hypocritical to do otherwise. The case is presented as if the only alternative was to deny the reality of the relationship, or to place their relationship on an equal footing with marriage, which is what the current formula for invitations suggests.

THERE was an alternative which, for whatever reason, the Taoiseach decided not to choose. That was to be open about his relationship, to be accompanied by Ms Larkin in her private capacity, and to change how State invitations are worded. There is something archaic about the notion of a spouse or even a partner being appended to such invitations in any case.

We all know of cases - Norma Major allegedly being one - where the automatic assumption that the spouse would take her part in public was a form of torture for her. It is only a matter of time before some feisty prime minister's wife declines to be an appendage to her husband's career. The world did not appear to grind to a halt when Hillary Clinton effectively left the White House months before her husband's term of office came to an end.

What is most important, of course, is not whether spouses and partners, who are mostly women, should be treated as appendages. It is whether in his or her public capacity the Taoiseach should be seen in the public role to endorse certain central values in a society. Pluralism does not mean the automatic endorsement of all forms of lifestyle. That is not pluralism, but anarchy. So where then should lines be drawn?

How we deal with this question has ramifications for our maturity as a democracy. There is an understandable, and I believe a laudable, desire not to point the finger at people who have marital difficulties. Yet this is not the same as saying that a partnership, no matter how stable or committed, is the equivalent of marriage.

On average, married people are physically healthier and have lower mortality rates than single, cohabiting, divorced or separated people. They live more regular and secure lives, and engage in less substance abuse and other harmful activities. They suffer from less anxiety, depression, and other mental ailments. These findings apply to both sexes . . . Serious violence among married couples is uncommon, while violence of all kinds is much less frequent than among cohabiting couples . . . Marriage remains a valuable institution, for the individuals concerned, for their children, and for society as a whole. The empirical evidence is now overwhelmingly in support of all three of these propositions.

These are not my words, but those of Prof Bob Rowthorn, professor of economics at Cambridge University and co-author of The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce, to be published by Cambridge University Press in July. His is just the latest voice to be added to a now overwhelming body of evidence that marriage is a social good.

Of course, evidence such as this does not automatically confer second-class citizenship on those who are not in stable married relationships, or on their children. Yet it does point out a serious question which we need to wrestle with in society. How do we balance the need for respect for different family forms with the need to promote a norm which is best for society and, more particularly, for children? Successive governments' rhetoric on support for marriage has been accompanied by a failure to address this delicate balance with practical policy initiatives.

Now that's a bit rich. That's hypocrisy.

bobrien@irish-times.ie